US antitrust officials today urged the Federal Communications Commission to limit the amount of wireless spectrum Verizon Wireless and AT&T can buy during future auctions.

The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, in a letter sent to the FCC yesterday and made public today, said Verizon and AT&T have more than their share of prime spectrum compared to T-Mobile and Sprint.

"[T]he Commission must ensure that the allocation of spectrum at auction does not enable carriers with high market shares to foreclose smaller carriers from improving their customers' coverage," DOJ officials wrote. "Today, the two leading carriers have the vast majority of low-frequency spectrum, whereas the two other nationwide carriers have virtually none. This results in the two smaller nationwide carriers having a somewhat diminished ability to compete, particularly in rural areas where the cost to build out coverage is higher with high-frequency spectrum."

The DOJ filing came in response to a notice of proposed rulemaking the FCC issued last September in order to review "policies governing mobile spectrum holdings in order to ensure that they fulfill our statutory objectives given changes in technology, spectrum availability, and the marketplace since the Commission’s last comprehensive review more than a decade ago."

With FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stepping down, the new yet-to-be-named chairperson will likely preside over an auction of spectrum controlled by TV broadcasters. That's low-frequency spectrum in the 600MHz band, attractive because its signals propagate farther than those going over higher-frequency airwaves.

In addition to licensing spectrum to cellular providers, the auction could either increase or decrease the amount of unlicensed spectrum available to White Spaces networks. The auction is still in the early planning stages, with no date set.

Consumer advocacy groups applauded the DOJ's stance. Public Knowledge said "it is gratifying to see the DOJ take such a strong stand in favor of competition and against the wireless status quo." FCC policies that let a few carriers acquire massive spectrum holdings have limited "the ability of smaller, rural, and regional carriers to provide service," the group continued. "This leads to high prices and limited choice for consumers, and allows the largest carriers to use their power to control handsets and the pace of wireless innovation."

I find the statement "Spectrum auctions should boost competition" to be very strange. The entire concept of an auction goes against that idea. Auctions are won by the guy who has the most money to spend, which means they naturally favor large incumbents. If you want to boost small carriers, spectrum auctions are opposite of what you want to do.

I think it would be better for an agency/company to control a large swath of spectrum that is built out across the country. The carriers then rent out the spectrum at wholesale costs.

This simplifies the hardware required for all the phone manufacturers. Every phone should work with every carrier that uses this spectrum.

Of course, I don't trust our current government with that kind of power. It would not surprise me to hear them reading web traffic, etc. when they shouldn't be. Until something changes with respect to that, it is not a workable solution.

It's still would be better if the DoJ would split every carrier into two companies: a network company and a [MVNO] carrier. Have the network companies highly regulated and allow any carrier use any available tower. That will reduce network redundancy and could improve overall coverage. And it would benefit customers massively by giving them real competition without having to worry about whether the company they go with will have service. They all use the same public airwaves, it's well past time that there is interoperability between carriers. We shouldn't have to wait 100 years before the government enforces interconnectivity between networks when there is more than enough legal precedence to force it now.

Verizon doesn't really need much more spectrum. Its 700MHz license is nationwide, it got all that AWS-1 spectrum from the cable companies for future LTE (and swapped with T-Mo to get contiguous spectrum for faster LTE).

AT&T on the other hand, still needs a little more spectrum because their 700MHz licenses are broken up into smaller pieces, and they own virtually no 700MHz in the midwestern US. The WCS purchase/agreement is a good step, they'll have 10+10 almost nationwide, but it'll be suitable for small-cell deployment because its at 2.3GHz. There are still large portions of the country they aren't going to service geographically (they will cover 94% of the population with LTE by the end of 2014). When AT&T is trying to promote things like car telematics, it needs to push that geographic coverage even further so that you're actually covered when you're out on the highway in the middle of South Dakota, Kansas or New Mexico.

The upcoming 600MHz incentive auction should sell off 70MHz of spectrum (2x35MHz, or 7 5MHz FDD blocks most likely). Personally, I'd like to see AT&T get a 5MHz nationwide block, and then T-Mo and Sprint both get 10 or 15MHz blocks, with other small carriers getting some in their region.

The best side-effect of the incentive auction should be the resolution of the issue in the 700MHz band and channel 51. Once the spectrum is cleared out, we might be able to force lower-700MHz interoperability (band 12 instead of band 17 for AT&T).

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

This won't stop anything. Verizon & AT&T will just start up shell telecoms to buy out spectrum at auction, then in turn be bought by VZW and AT&T, since spectrum purchases have been all but rubber-stamped by the FCC lately.

The auctions have been conducted under the principle that the firm paying the most for spectrum is obviously encouraged to put it to the highest economic value to Americans; allowing low bidders to acquire it might mean companies that cannot afford to build out towers, or have fewer customers and hence, lower revenues to cover paying for the spectrum.

Genachowski himself commented on the strategies that companies can use to turn those Econ 101 principles upside down. By dominating the auctions, large companies can reduce competitors' ability to offer quality, widespread coverage. That lets the biggies keep prices higher than under actual competition, and along with higher prices comes lower utilization. Worst of both for the citizenry, who also have the insult of their government claiming it's for our own good.

I thought Sprint had near nationwide 850mhz (license) coverage from the Nextel iDen network they're in the process of shutting down. Am I mistaken in how widespread their licenses are; or is their total spectrum just too little to do much of anything with?

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

I would guess either the US government is thoroughly corrupted by regulatory capture, or is just too spineless to stand up to corporations and protect the public interest. Either way, we're just as screwed.

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

I would guess either the US government is thoroughly corrupted by regulatory capture, or is just too spineless to stand up to corporations and protect the public interest. Either way, we're just as screwed.

I'd be more willing to wager that solution's not been presented to the right people to make it happen.

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

I would guess either the US government is thoroughly corrupted by regulatory capture, or is just too spineless to stand up to corporations and protect the public interest. Either way, we're just as screwed.

I'd be more willing to wager that solution's not been presented to the right people to make it happen.

Seriously? The same FCC that either F'ed up or outright refused to open competition over last-mile DSL and cable networks, later claiming that actually doing so would be "anti-competitive"? No, they were clearly told what needed to be done, but the ISPs cried HELL NO...and in the end got their way. The same thing has happened again and again with the wireless telcos too. Every time the issue of competition comes up, the big telcos cry "see, look at all of the little guys in the market, there's plenty of competition!" Then, turn around and bid to buyout those same little guys. There wasn't all that much resistance until tmobile was bidding for a buyout.

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

There are a number of free web sites that will let you search out towers within X miles of an address. You should try it, you'll be surprised. The cell companies found it was cheaper to sell their towers in some locations and then rent them back - the new owners can provide them cheaper because they are renting them to everyone.

Could someone please explain (or point me to one) how all the cell companies In Europe share spectrum so all customers have to do to switch providers is swap their SIM card, but for some reason the providers in the USA don't have to share frequencies and allow this? Is there some reason they can't be forced to use interchangeable tech while switching to LTE?

As usual, it's not so much corruption as a blinding faith in the markets to sort out everything. In Europe, they

The end result is that there are at least 2 major carriers in each country, and they operate more less on the same frequency with interchangeable equipment. Things have got a bit fragmented lately as some carriers are reusing 900 or 1800 bands for LTE, or are using 600-700MHz spectrum vacated by analog TV. I don't believe any 2.6GHz sales have been held yet.

Congress would NEVER let the FCC pick a single standard tech for cell service. So we had, at one point, a 3-way battle between GSM,iDEN and CDMA2000 and still have a bisected set of standards.

Republicans have even pushed for relaxing rules put in place to ensure competition, like not letting the same carrier own both 850MHz licenses in one area.

Spectrum auctions have pretty much been a failure. Currently, it is a huge mismanagement of public property. In this case, the FCC is the steward of publicly owned spectrum and they have done a poor job of it.

Revoke all current licenses. Have the government be a great big dumb pipe, giving equal access to any company that wants in the cellular business. Every company pays the same rate per unit of bandwidth. The rate being set annually, based on cost to maintain the system. Build it out. Plus 35%. 10% goes back to the treasury, and 25% gets set aside for new technology upgrades as technology improves.

One standard for cellular devices, that gets reviewed every 5 years. So the consumer can take their phone, tablet or whatever to any carrier at will.

That's the only way to introduce real competition in this area.

P.S. I am a conservative, pro competition guy. You cannot have competition with a limited supply, that locks out anyone who may want to enter the field. Only when all comers have equal access to the product (Bandwidth) and the consumers can competition actually take place.

Why in the world would the DOJ speak out against the carriers that provide them with so many gifts? And why would the FCC pay any attention either given they get lots of gifts as well?

The carriers pay enough to the government under the table to get what they want, so the letter is just publicity to try to show that the DOJ cares. ha.

The DoJ has no power here and in all truth, neither does the FCC. The DoJ probably has more power here; the only thing the FCC really has the power to do is fine people for showing boobs on public access. Congress thought it would be funny to let the FCC auction off spectrum but they have no real control.